Experts forecast huge drop in cancer deaths by 2050

Cancer will kill almost no one under the age of 80 by 2050 due to continued advances preventing and treating the disease, a major study suggests.

The research by University College London was published as experts said that a daily low-dose aspirin is the single most effective action to protect against cancer.

Prof Jack Cuzick, who leads research into disease prevention, urged GPs to do more to ensure patients were given advice to take “baby aspirin” for a decade between the ages of 50 and 65.

He cited research showing that such action reduces the chance of cancer, heart attacks and strokes by between 7% and 9% in 15 years and cuts overall death rates by 4% in two decades.

Author Professor David Taylor, UCL Emeritus Professor of Pharmaceutical and Public Health Policy, said that within decades, it would become rare for cancer to kill those in middle age.

“This is a projection of what is already happening,” he said.

“Overall age-standardised cancer deaths are down 20% since about 1990.

“What makes this a special point in history is that cancers are in the process of becoming either preventable or effectively curable,” he said.

Taylor said that with the right positive actions – such as wider uptake of aspirin and more sophisticated tracking of prostate cancer – improvements could accelerate further.

The report says: “It is realistic to expect by 2050 nearly all cancer related deaths in children and adults aged up to [say] 80 years will have become preventable through life-style changes and because of the availability of protective technologies and better pharmaceutical and other therapies.”

Cuzick, director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London, said not smoking and not putting on too much weight were both effective ways to reduce the chance of cancer combined with taking aspirin daily.

Experts have argued over the benefits of aspirin versus its risks, because the drug can increase the risk of stomach bleeding and ulcers.

But Cuzick said the recent study found that aspirin saved 17 lives for each death caused.

Anyone at high risk of bleeding should talk to their GP first, experts said.

Those on blood-thinning drugs, with diabetes or those who smoke should seek similar advice.